Entrepreneur Blog » Money

AdSense Day at Google’s Headquarters

Evan Carmichael — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 20:51:34 +0000

Last week I got an amazing opportunity from Google – they invited me and some of the other top Canadian AdSense publishers to their Toronto head office to discuss AdSense tips and tricks as well as preview new changes that are coming to the AdSense program.

We weren’t allowed to take pictures inside their offices so above is a picture of me standing in their lobby! I really wanted to take a photo of the gourmet lunch they served us and the wall of free snacks, drinks and candies that they made available to their staff and guests (not to mention the Rock Band setup in one of the breakout rooms).

I’m bound by a non-disclosure agreement and am not able to share with you today some of the new AdSense features that are in development (which are very very cool!) but I can mention some of the strategies that the Google team suggested using to maximize the revenue entrepreneurs can make with AdSense. Many of the suggestions I’ve touched on already or will discuss in my From $0.30 to $300 / Day on Google AdSense series but it’s always good to hear it straight from Google.

Here are some of the tips:

Use AdSense for Search

AdSense for Search typically has much higher eCPMs than regular placements on your site so use search and make it visible! It will not only make for a better user experience for your visitors (they can find the content they are looking for), it can also make you more money!

Look At Your Ad Units

Not all ad units are created equal and the data shows that the #1 money producing ad unit is the 300 x 250 rectangle. #2 is the 728 x 90 leaderboard and #3 is the 160 x 600 skyscraper.

Focus On Ad Location

Put the horizontal ad units (like the 728 x 90 leaderboard) in the content itself and not at the top of the page. People expect to see ads at the top of the page so they won’t click on them if you put them there. If your ads are embedded within the content you’ll get a much higher click through rate. This goes for the other ad units as well – if you want a high number of clicks put them into the content itself and not outside the content.

Aim for 1-5% Click Through Rate (CTR)

According to Google’s data, a 1-5% click through rate is “healthy” – if you’re below that range you should be better optimizing your units to pull in more money.

Use Link Units

I haven’t been a big advocate of using link units because they don’t generate anywhere near the results of the regular ad units (from my experience) but the Google team pointed out that the people who click on link units have a different profile than those who click on the regular ad units. In other words you’re not losing money by people clicking on the link units which pay out less because they wouldn’t be clicking on your regular ad units anyway.

Use Google Blue Link

Google has invested “millions of dollars” into finding out which link color gets the most clicks. The specific blue that they chose leads to the greatest number of clicks and the further you deviate away from it the harder it is to make money. The best click through rate sites are the ones with white backgrounds and can use the blue links.

And what’s a Google event without some free giveaways? On top of the awesome information and the gourmet meal we also left with a Google mug and Google solar powered battery charger:

From $0.30 to $300 / Day on Google AdSense Part 5 – How To Make Money

Evan Carmichael — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 16:10:50 +0000

(Photo Credit: Tomitheos) It’s time to kick it up a notch in the “$0.30 to $300 / Day on Google AdSense” series. Today I’m going to cover another important factor to increase you click through rate (CTR) from our Money Making Formula: $ = V x CTR x CPC formula. If you’re not sure what this means or if you want a quick recap on the other posts in the series here is what we’ve covered so far:

CTR

Today’s lesson is…

Focus on Ad Relevancy

If the website content you’ve written focuses on working from home opportunities, for example, and the ads that show up on your AdSense are related to vacation deals you won’t get many people clicking on the ads because they are not relevant to the text around it. The bottom line is your CTR will fall off the cliff and you won’t earn very much money.

Now if you can get your ads to match up with your content you have a great opportunity to make some serious money. People who come to your website for working from home ideas expect to see related opportunities and they will click on the ads if you give them what they want.

“Again, if your ads aren’t targeted to the content on your page then you’re not going to get a high CTR which means less in your pocket.”

Here is how to help Google show only relevant ads to your readers:

1) Title Tag, URL, Headline Tag

The title tag, URL and headline tags are among the most important “onsite” factors that Google looks at. Why are they so important? Because you can only use so many characters in each. You’re not going to have a title that is a paragraph long – it’s one sentence or sometimes just a few keywords so what you use better have a high relevancy to the content on the page.

It’s best to keep your title, url and headline tag as focused as possible and not try to get too fancy. Using common expressions in these important areas, for example can hurt not only your relevancy but also reduce your search engine traffic.

2) Keep Articles Focused

With each article on your site you want to have at least 300 words (I always target 500 words) for search engine purposes and for ad relevancy it’s important that you keep your content focused on one topic. If you jump around from topic to topic within the same article Google’s AdSense filter will have a hard time determining which ads to show in your ad units.

Again, if your ads aren’t targeted to the content on your page then you’re not going to get a high CTR which means less in your pocket.

“A final tip is to use the section targeting option that Google gives you. Section targeting allows you to tell Google what you feel is important in your article that you want them to pay attention to.”

3) Text Around Ad

Another important element to pay attention to is the text that is around your ad. For example, if you have your ad at the top of the page next to your first paragraph of text and in the intro paragraph you talk about your summer vacation before getting into the meat of your post then there is a high likelihood that your AdSense unit will show ads related to your summer vacation and not the rest of the text.

Make sure that the text surrounding your ad is highly relevant to the rest of the article and is what you want Google’s AdSense filter to pay attention to.

4) Section Targeting

A final tip is to use the section targeting option that Google gives you. Section targeting allows you to tell Google what you feel is important in your article that you want them to pay attention to. For example, if you have a site structure that includes a header, sidebar, and footer you might want to exclude those from the AdSense filter so that Google is only seeing your article text when choosing which ads to display.

To use section targeting simply pop in this code:

Article text

The start and end tags should go into your HTML and will never be seen by your users, only by Google. Make sure to replace the bolded “Article text” with the content of your page that you want the AdSense filter to pay attention to.

By using the title tag, URL, and headline tag effectively, keeping your articles focused, paying attention to the text around your ad, and implementing section targeting you will find that the ads that show up on your AdSense units are much more relevant to your readers.

Remember that relevant ads get clicked on – you have the ad space already set up and you’re hard at work writing great content and promoting your website. You might as well maximize the money that you can make through AdSense by improving your ad relevancy.

Have you thought about your ad relevancy before? Have you implemented any changes to improve your CTR? Please comment below – I would love to hear from you!

From $0.30 to $300 / Day on Google AdSense Part 4 – How To Make Money

Evan Carmichael — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 12:36:59 +0000

It’s time for Part 4 of my series on how to make $300 / day from Google AdSense. Today I’m going to focus in on another key strategy that can increase your click through rate (CTR) from the $ = V x CTR x CPC formula. In case you missed the first three posts, here they are:

Today’s lesson is…

Don’t Make Ads Look Like Ads!

If you think about your own experience in browsing through websites, you’ll likely not going to click on something that screams “I am an advertisement!” Most website owners who get started with AdSense use the default settings that Google provides and unfortunately those settings make the ad units look too much like ads. If you want to increase your click through rate, you need to blend your ads so they match your website and don’t stand out as advertisements. I’m going to show you a couple of ways to do this using an example:

This is an example where the website has optimized it’s two Google ad units effectively. What they have done includes:

Blended Background

Set the background of your ad unit to be the same background as the rest of your page. The ad unit in this example at the top left carries the same light blue background as the rest of the sidebar and the bigger ad unit in the middle of the page is not only in a great location, it also has the same white background as the rest of the article. Always make your ad background the same color as the surrounding information so it blends better and doesn’t stand out like a sore thumb.

Eliminate the Border

You might also have noticed that neither of the two ads have borders on them. Eliminating the border can have a dramatic increase on your click through rates because it again helps the ad not stand out as an ad. Removing the border is simple enough through AdSense but the default setting includes a border so you have to turn it off. To remove the border simply set the border color to be the same as the background color.

Blend Link and Regular Text

Within AdSense you also have the option to set different colors for the headline, description, and link text. Try to blend these colors so they match the rest of your site. The goal here is to make it look like part of your article so people will click through. In the example I provided the main text of the article is black so the description in the ad is black. The main links in the article are blue so the ad links are blue. Keep your colors consistent and your click through rates will continue to rise.

Make Link Text Blue

Website visitors are used to seeing links as being blue so changing the color around will often decrease the number of clicks that you get. For a normal website with a white background, blue is typically the default color that webmasters use. But what if you have an all green website where your links are green as well? The opinions are mixed here because by making the links blue it will counter my previous point about blending the link text. However people don’t always know that a link is actually a link if it’s in a different color. My recommendation would be to try and create a design where blue links are your default color choice so you can make your ad units have blue link text as well.

As is the case with any AdSense advice, the best part is that you can test test test all the results and get immediate feedback. Try a regular blue link versus a dark blue link to see which color outperforms. You can test background colors, border colors and blended text as well to gauge which combination pulls in the most money. Just make sure you only test one variable at a time so you can know which change is making the difference.

I always look forward to hearing what you have to say – have you been able to increase your click through rates by making your ads not look like ads?

From $0.30 to $300 / Day on Google AdSense Part 3 – How To Make Money

Evan Carmichael — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 04:54:51 +0000

In my first two posts in this series I discussed the AdSense formula $ = V x CTR x CPC and how to increase your V through search engine optimization, Twitter, and getting others to write content for you. Today I’m going to assume we’ve solved the “How do I get traffic?” problem and move on to the next part in the formula – the Click Through Rate (CTR).

Now we’re worried about getting the people who are coming to our site clicking through on our AdSense ads. All the traffic in the world won’t help you if they don’t click through on your ads.

“It might make sense logically to put it at the top because that’s where everyone else is putting it but it’s exactly that reason why you should choose a different location.”

Location, Location, Location

You’ve heard that in real estate the location of your property is the key to getting a high sale price. The same principle applies to websites and Google AdSense – the location of your ads can make a big difference in how much money goes into your wallet every month. Most people who get started with AdSense end up putting the ads in the low value areas which result in poor earnings.

Because Google only earns money through AdSense when you earn money they have provided a number of tools to help you be more successful. One of the most important ones is their Heat Map. According to Google:

“Certain locations tend to be more successful than others. This “heat map” illustrates the ideal placing on a sample page layout. The colors fade from dark orange (strongest performance) to light yellow (weakest performance).”

Note that the banner spots at the top of the page, bottom of the page and right side of the page are not high paying locations. This is where most websites owners who are new to AdSense will put their ad units and it might make sense logically to put ads at the top because that’s where everyone else is putting them but it’s exactly that reason why you should choose a different location.

People have “banner blindness” and are used to seeing ads at the top, for example, so they ignore it and move downwards to where they think the content will be. You can see from the Heat Map that the highest payout area is in the middle of the page within the primary content of the page – not where you would expect ads to be which is exactly the point. According to Google:

“All other things being equal, ads located above the fold tend to perform better than those below the fold. Ads placed near rich content and navigational aids usually do well because users are focused on those areas of a page. ”

What If I Run Forums?

For all you website owners with forums, Google hasn’t forgotten about you and they launched a different Heat Map specifically for you. Here is what Google has to say and what the Heat Map looks like:

“Because forum regulars tend to skip the header and go straight to the meat of the thread, placing your ad unit above or below the first post can be more effective than ads next to the logo. Place a leaderboard immediately after the last post. This provides users who make it to the end of a thread with a ‘next step’ when the content ends. Try to avoid placing it after the footer, though, as your readers will likely move to the next thread without seeing the ad. ”

What If I Have A Blog?

Finally, if you are a blogger and want to make money from AdSense, Google has two suggested layouts to choose from. See which one works best for you. Here are Google’s comments and the layouts:

“In general, wider ad formats tend to be more reader-friendly. Placing an ad unit after the first post will likely catch your readers’ attention. Take a look at our sample implementations to get some ideas. Also, consider placing a Skyscraper (120×600) or vertical link unit on the right side of your blog. ”

One of the greatest parts about running a business through AdSense is that you can quickly test different variables and see what generates the best results. Whether you have a website, forum, or blog, use these layouts as general templates to help figure out starting points for where to put your AdSense ads. Keep testing until you find the location that works best for you. Changing my ad locations was the first thing I did to optimize my AdSense and helped move me from having a website to having an online business.

In Part 4 of this series I will continue to look at how you can increase the click through rates of the AdSense units on your pages.

As always I look forward to your comments. What experience have you had with changing the location of your AdSense ad units?

From $0.30 to $300 / Day on Google AdSense Part 2 – How To Make Money

Evan Carmichael — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 07:36:23 +0000

In my last post (From $0.30 to $300 / Day on Google AdSense Part 1 – How To Make Money) I talked about the importance of the formula $ = V x CTR x CPC which means that the money that you make ($) is equal to the number of visitors (V) that you get to your site multiplied by the click through rate (CTR) of those visitors onto the ads on your site multiplied by the cost per click (CPC) of the ads being clicked on. I promised you last time that I would give you a powerful way to increase your V alongside search engine optimization and Twitter so here it is:

Have other people write the content for you.

Having great content is the key to generating traffic through search engines, referring websites, and social media. The expression “Content is King” is true and the more excellent content you have, the higher your V score will be and the more money you can make.

As an entrepreneur you are limited in your time and you need a lot of content and traffic to make a living off of advertising. How many articles could you possibly write per day? What if you could leverage the writing talents of people who loved to write and were great at it and have them create content for your website?

John D. Rockefeller, one of the most successful entrepreneurs who ever lived, once said: “I would rather earn 1% off a 100 people’s efforts than 100% of my own efforts.” In other words, if you want to build a successful business you need to build a plan to take yourself out of the equation and leverage the work of other people effectively.

Here is how my sitemap size has grown over the years since I started keeping track in September of 2005:

September 2005:          885 pages of content
September 2006:    4,067 pages of content
September 2007:    29,043 pages of content
September 2008:    42,397 pages of content
June 2009:                 65,687 pages of content

As you can see there has been significant growth over the years and my advertising revenue has climbed accordingly. How am I able to generate over 65,000 pages of content? It’s not coming from me writing thousands and thousands of articles. The answer is that I created a system that motivated other people to want to write and contribute to my website.

“I learned a valuable lesson to outsource to technology wherever possible and humanize the exception by hiring staff or handling it myself.”

Here is the quick story: I started creating articles for my site on famous entrepreneurs and quickly discovered that I while I enjoyed writing, it wasn’t what I wanted to do all day so I hired someone part time to continue doing the stories. As my site grew and my articles got picked up in the search engines, business coaches, marketing consultants, PR experts and other small business leaders wrote to me asking if they could add articles to my site. I picked the good articles and added them in manually.

It started as a trickle and soon dozens of people were writing in with articles. It got to be too much for me to handle. I was basically just adding author articles in by creating HTML files all day long. I tried outsourcing this to a student intern but she made too many mistakes. I learned a valuable lesson to outsource to technology wherever possible and humanize the exception by hiring staff or handling it myself.

To make a long story short, we created a system where authors could log in, write their bios, and add in their articles. Each article gets reviewed by our editor and then gets posted live on the site. We currently have over 4,000 contributing expert authors on the site. Without their help I would not have been able to generate so many pages in my sitemap and would not generate much advertising revenue either.

“If you’re hoping to build a business from advertising you need to create a road map for how you’re going to generate 10,000+ pages of content.”

So how do you get people to contribute their articles to your website? The key is to offer value in return. Expert authors who join my site rank higher in the search engines for their keywords, get increased traffic to their websites, build credibility as an expert in their industries, attract targeted customers, and get the chance to publicize their small business for free. It’s a win-win-win situation. My authors benefit from the great exposure, my readers benefit from the valuable information, and I benefit by bringing them both together, selling advertising, and not having to write the content myself.

If you’re hoping to build a business from advertising you need to create a road map for how you’re going to generate 10,000+ pages of content. It’s not going to be from you writing all those articles yourself so figure out a way you can add value and make it worthwhile for authors to contribute to your website.

In Part 3 of this series I will continue to attack the $ = V x CTR x CPC formula and will share one of the biggest breakthroughs that I made on the CTR side that drastically changed my mindset and made me realize that I had an actual business on my hands and not just a website.

As always I look forward to your comments. What experience have you had with getting other people to write for your website?

From $0.30 to $300 / Day on Google AdSense Part 1 – How To Make Money

Evan Carmichael — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 20:12:07 +0000

Making money from a website used to be extremely challenging – not only did you have to produce great content and promote it effectively, you also had to go out and find advertisers to give yourself a revenue stream to live off of.

Enter Google AdSense

Google changed the playing field for many web publishers because they went out and found you advertisers for your website. Every time your users click on one of your ads, you get paid and Google takes a commission. As Google AdSense grew to become the largest online ad network they could also find targeted advertisers who might only advertise on one of your pages but not the others because it was of specific interest to them. That kind of needle-point precision helps increase your number of clicks because it’s more targeted information and also would have been nearly impossible to manage if you had individual advertisers approaching you to place ads one page at a time.

Best of all, Google AdSense is extremely easy to install. You just have to copy and paste a few lines of code into your website template and Google takes care of the rest!

“I thought to myself “You CAN make a living from this!” Four months later, in May, I passed the $300 per day mark for the first time.”

Making Real Money From Google AdSense

Most website owners that have AdSense installed barely earn enough each day to buy a cup of coffee. When I first started in January of 2005 I was making $0.27 per day. I thought to myself “I’ll give this AdSense thing a try.” By May, as my traffic grew, so did my AdSense revenue. Suddenly I was making $1.17 per day. Unfortunately a lot of website owners never get past this stage. I thought to myself “Maybe I can do better” and delved into the world of AdSense optimization, or in other words, figuring out how to make the most from the traffic I had coming to my site. The hardest way to make money is to increase your number of visitors. The easiest way is to make more money from the visitors that you already have.

After optimizing my AdSense and continuing to grow my business I first crossed the $100 per day mark in January of 2006. I thought to myself “You CAN make a living from this!” Four months later, in May, I passed the $300 per day mark for the first time. The rest, as they say, is history. In this series I hope to share with you some of the tactics that worked for me and hopefully you can use them to grow your online business as well.

“Most online entrepreneurs who try AdSense get one or two of the important success factors but not all three which is why they can only buy themselves a cup of coffee per day from their AdSense earnings.”

$ = V x CTR x CPC

This is the most important formula that you need to know if you’re planning on using AdSense to make money. The money that you make ($) is equal to the number of visitors (V) that you get to your site multiplied by the click through rate (CTR) of those visitors onto the ads on your site multiplied by the cost per click (CPC) of the ads being clicked on. If you want to be able to live off of your website then you need to have traffic coming to your site, a high percentage of the visitors who come to your site clicking through on your ads, and you need to be in a niche topic where people are willing to pay a lot of money to advertise. You need all three working together to be successful. Most online entrepreneurs who try AdSense get one or two of the important success factors but not all three which is why they can only buy themselves a cup of coffee per day from their AdSense earnings.

Let’s look at the following chart to explain this important point:

You could have an extremely popular site but if it’s not optimized for AdSense and it’s not in a high paying niche then you’re only going to make pocket change from your earnings. Similarly if all you do is optimize for AdSense but don’t have many visitors and you’re in a low paying niche then you still won’t be making very much. Finally, if you are in a great niche but have low visitor numbers and don’t AdSense optimize then you’re again just going to be scraping by.

Even if you get two of these factors right you still won’t hit a big payday. For instance if you have a popular website and optimize for AdSense but it’s in a niche that doesn’t pay well then you will need to find a day job to support yourself. You’ll get the same results by picking any two of these factors.You will only break out when you can get all three working together. The reason is because each number is multiplied by one another. If you have the equation A x B x C, even if A and B are massive numbers, if C is very low, you’ll still end up with a small amount.

For information on how to increase your Visitors you should learn about search engine optimization and Twitter. In Part 2 of this series I will look at another way to dramatically increase your Visitors and then continue the series by discussing ways to maximize your CTR and CPC to help you start earning a real living from AdSense.